1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a process and an arrangement for controlling the course of a program in processing forms in data processing systems for data contents of a form (blank) consisting of fields to be processed in which the pictorial presentation of the form, the reading and the feeding in of the data relevant for this form, the manipulation of this data by the user and the processing of this data by a form processing program strictly assigned to this form and arranged according to the choice of the user among several form specifications.
2. Description of Related Art
Data processing systems for the field of business and administration are used mostly with two principles of application. They serve, on the one hand, for solving business object tasks, as for example writing invoices, registering bills of delivery, updating accounts of objects, net requirement accounts, wage and salary account settlements. Such business object tasks are prepared without taking into consideration the actual office organization whereby data are also processed. On the other hand, a data processing system can be equally applied as an office communication system in order to increase the efficacy of purely administrative tasks. In this process, mainly forms are processed the contents of which are not being further processed by the data processing system. Furthermore, parts of office organization, as for example calendars, files, card files, addressed, etc., are additionally gathered. Mainly data displays are provided by this process.
Heretofore, a combination of these two processes in the application of a data processing system required the creation of a combined working and displaying program. When a change is to be introduced into the framework of one of the principles of application, then, for example, one of the forms must be changed and a complete revision of the combined program is necessary, since the individual parts of the program for the data processing and display of data are not independent but are realized as a user program, with subprograms contained within them.